A predicted LNP rout in Queensland is looking unlikely but with five seats held by less than two per cent, the pollsters could be proved wrong on election day.

May 18, 2019

Labor’s hopes that Queensland would be the swing-state to deliver an election victory are likely to be dashed with the LNP tipped to hold all but one of its five marginal Sunshine State seats.

Conservative voters shouldn’t kick off their election day with a champagne breakfast however, as the other four are held by less than two per cent and voters may prove the pollsters wrong.

Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson, which he’s held for 18 years, is among them, along with Capricornia (0.63), Forde (0.63) and Petrie (1.65).

The home affairs minister is in the fight of his political life as he duels for votes with Labor candidate Ali Francis.

Grass-roots campaigning by GetUp has put pressure on Mr Dutton, who started his campaigning with a gaffe when he claimed Ms France was using her disability as an “excuse” not to move into the electorate.

He holds the mortgage-belt seat covering Brisbane’s northwestern suburbs and some rural parts, by a wafer-thin 1.69 per cent but is expected to win.

Further north, LNP incumbent Ken O’Dowd’s huge central seat of Flynn, which is based on the coal, gas, grain, cattle businesses and the port of Gladstone, looks likely to fall to Labor’s Zac Beers on Saturday.

Elsewhere in the state, the LNP should stave off the bloodshed expected south of the border and pick up the ultra-marginal seat of Herbert following a blitz of regional electorates by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Former serviceman and 2018 Queensland Young Australian of the Year Phillip Thompson is tipped to win Herbert for the LNP from Labor’s Cathy O’Toole, who holds the seat by 0.02 per cent following her 2016 win by 37 votes.

The Senate race will also be hotly contested as voters hit the polling booths following Clive Palmer’s $50 million advertising splurge in his bid to make a return to federal parliament.

One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts is also hoping to make a return to the house on the hill in Canberra but punters may be wary following the scandal over the party’s links to the US gun lobby.

Greens Larissa Waters should have enough support to keep her seat but controversial far-right senator Fraser Anning is unlikely to win.